Project GROWS, a non-profit educational farm for youth located in Augusta County, announces spring in-school tastings for Staunton City Schools this week.

Project GROWS staff are traveling to three elementary schools this week to introduce students to fresh, farm grown greens like tatsoi and kale. Additional produce will be provided by local farms including the Allegheny Mountain Institute’s Urban Farm at the Virginia School for Deaf and Blind, who will also have representatives at the tastings.

Education Coordinator Lindsey Lennon notes that many of the students will have been out to the Project GROWS farm, participating in the education programs that allow students to get a better understanding of the growth cycle of the vegetables on the farm. In some cases, the students will have worked on or around the food that they will be eating at these tastings, which can be an enormous source of pride for the students.

By bringing the tastings to the school environment they are more familiar with, Project GROWS is showing the students that eating healthy foods is not something that only happens on a farm. The tastings can make the healthy experience more personal and meaningful by showing that healthy eating can occur everywhere.

Project GROWS is able to participate in school tastings thanks to the generous support from Staunton City Schools, partner farmers and individuals and businesses in our community.

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Augusta Free Press launched in 2002. The site serves as a portal into life in the Shenandoah Valley and Central Virginia – in a region encompassing Augusta County, Albemarle County and Nelson County and the cities of Charlottesville, Staunton and Waynesboro, at the entrance to the Blue Ridge Parkway, Skyline Drive, Shenandoah National Park and the Appalachian Trail.